by Nancy Krulik
For Danny, who goes wherever the music takes him
—N. K.
WELCOME TO CLASS 4A.
We have a warning for you:
BEWARE OF THE MAP.
Our classroom probably looks a lot like yours. We have chairs, desks, a whiteboard, and artwork on the walls. And of course we have our teacher, Ms. Frogbottom.
Actually, our teacher is the reason why things sometimes get strange around here. Because Ms. Frogbottom is kind of different.
For starters, she carries around a backpack. It looks like any other pack, but somehow strange things always seem to be popping out of it. You don’t have to worry about most of the stuff our teacher carries. But if she reaches into her pack and pulls out her giant map, beware. That map is magic. It has the power to lift us right out of our classroom and drop us in some faraway place. And somehow it’s always the same exact time as when we left. No matter where we go, we wind up meeting frightening creatures none of us ever believed were real—and getting into all sorts of trouble.
You don’t have to be too scared, though. Things always seem to turn out okay for us in the end. Or at least they have so far.…
Your new pals,
Aiden, Emma, Oliver, Olivia, Sofia, and Tony
MS. FROGBOTTOM’S FIELD TRIP DO’S AND DON’TS
Do stay together.
Don’t take photos. You can’t experience the big world through a tiny camera hole.
Don’t bring home souvenirs. We want to leave the places we visit exactly as we found them.
Don’t use the word “weird.” The people, places, and food we experience are just different from what you are used to.
Do have fun!
1
LA, LA, LA, LA, LA.
Have you ever seen what little kids do when they don’t want to hear something? They stick their fingers into their ears and start singing really loudly.
La, la, la, la, la.
I wish I could do that now, because I don’t want to listen to Emma and Aiden fighting anymore.
But I’m not a little kid. I’m in fourth grade. And that’s waaaayyy too big to stick your fingers into your ears.
Besides, I haven’t cleaned my ears for a while. It could be kind of gross in there.
“Oliver! Are you listening to me?” Emma sticks her face in front of mine.
“I’ve been listening to you,” I assure her.
“My dance recital should be on the front page of the 4A Gazette,” Emma tells me. “If you were a real newspaper editor, you’d know that.”
Emma’s been saying things like that for the past fifteen minutes.
“My flag football game belongs on the front page,” Aiden argues. “We’re in the playoffs!”
Aiden’s been saying things like that for the past fifteen minutes.
See what I mean about wanting to stick my fingers into my ears?
“Come on, you guys,” I urge them. “Don’t you want the 4A Gazette to win the student newspaper contest?”
I already know the answer. Of course Aiden and Emma want to win that newspaper contest. We all do. The winning class gets a visit from Scoop Schaeffer. He’s a real reporter who has won all sorts of awards. It would be exciting to have him visit Class 4A. Especially for me, because as the editor of our class newspaper, I would be Scoop’s personal host. I’d even get to have lunch with him.
But if we’re going to win that visit from Scoop, we’re going to have to come up with an amazing front-page story. One that no other class has thought of. A story that will grab readers and make them want to read.
A real scoop.
Hey, I wonder if that’s how Scoop Schaeffer got his name.
“Of course I want to win,” Aiden insists. “That’s why I think we need to have the flag football story on the front page. Think about it—we’ll get the inside story on what it takes to make a championship team. I could interview myself.”
“Interview yourself?” I shake my head. “No way.”
“Sports stories go on the back page,” Emma argues. “But a dance recital could be front-page news.”
“Stop fighting,” I plead with them. “Everyone will get an article in the paper.”
“But not on the front page,” Emma points out. “And that’s the page everyone sees, even if they don’t read the whole paper.”
“Speaking of dancing,” Olivia interrupts. “Do you know how you make a tissue dance?”
“How?” Emma wonders.
“Put a little boogie in it!” Olivia starts laughing at her own joke.
I shoot my twin a grateful look. I’m glad she was able to stop Aiden and Emma from arguing—if only for a second. “That’s a funny one,” I tell her.
“Do newspapers have joke pages?” Olivia asks.
I shake my head. “Not usually. But they do have comic strips.”
“I could write a comic strip,” Olivia says. “I just can’t draw it.”
My sister and I both stare at Tony.
“What?” he asks, even though he knows what we’re thinking.
Tony draws all the time. You should see his math notebook. It’s filled with drawings. Not much math. But lots of drawings.
“Are you serious?” he asks me. “You want me to work with Olivia?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Olivia demands.
“You’re never nice to me,” Tony reminds her.
“I am sometimes,” Olivia insists.
“Name twice,” Tony says.
“Please, Tony,” I urge. “You’re the best artist in our class. Maybe in the whole fourth grade.”
Emma scowls at that. Probably because she’s always bragging about how she might be an artist when she grows up. Or an actress. Or a singer. Or a dancer.
“You could be the best artist in the whole school,” Olivia tells Tony.
Okay, now my sister’s going a little overboard.
Tony stares at Olivia. I think he’s trying to figure out if she’s teasing him or not.
I don’t blame him. My sister is a champion teaser.
Tony looks from Olivia to me, and back again. “Fine,” he tells Olivia. “I’ll work with you. Just be nice, okay?”
“I promise,” Olivia agrees.
“Great!” Emma exclaims. “You can put their comic strip on the page before Aiden’s football story.”
Ugh.
I look at my teacher. She’s sitting at her desk, happily knitting something that looks like a giant sweater, except it has four armholes.
She could be knitting a sweater for a really big dog.
Or a horse.
Or some four-armed alien from outer space. You never know with Ms. Frogbottom.
“What do you think?” I ask, hoping she’ll make the decision for me.
“You’re the editor,” Ms. Frogbottom replies. “It’s up to you.”
That’s not what I wanted to hear. No matter what I say now, Aiden or Emma will be mad at me.
Actually, they’re both going to be mad at me. “I don’t think either of your stories should go on the front page,” I tell them.
“I wish Ms. Frogbottom had made me editor,” Emma complains.
“You mean made me editor,” Aiden argues.
Oh brother. If we don’t win this student newspaper contest, I just know that Aiden and Emma are going to blame me.
I’ll probably blame me too.
Unless…
I look over at Sofia. She’s been sitting at her desk, quietly doing a crossword puzzle. Sofia is the class brain. Maybe she can use her smarts to come up with a great story idea. “Do you have an article you want to write?” I ask her.
“Actually, I have a strong story idea,” she says.
Awesome.
<
br /> “I want to cover the science fair,” she continues. “The fifth grade has been building dinosaur models with Popsicle sticks.”
Awesome. Not.
“That’s your great story idea? Model dinosaurs?”
“What do you want her to do, Liver?” Olivia asks me. “Find a real dinosaur?”
“Don’t call me ‘Liver,’ ” I tell her.
Olivia laughs. “Can’t you take a joke?”
See what I mean about my sister being a champion teaser?
“Scientists believe that birds are in the same family as dinosaurs,” Sofia tells us. “I could write about ornithology.…”
“Orange what?” I ask her.
“Ornithology,” Sofia repeats. “An eleven-letter word that means ‘the study of birds.’ It was the answer to a clue in last week’s crossword puzzle.”
FROGBOTTOM FACTS
Many scientists believe that birds are part of the same animal group as the two-legged dinosaurs called theropods.
Tyrannosaurus rex was a theropod.
It’s one thing to learn new words when Ms. Frogbottom puts them on the board as our Word of the Day. But Sofia memorizes vocabulary words just for fun. Of course, it’s easy for her. She has a photographic memory. Everything she reads, she remembers.
Unfortunately, Sofia’s ability to memorize big words doesn’t help me right now. “I wasn’t talking about birds,” I tell her. “I meant a huge dinosaur. Like in a museum. How cool would it be if we found one that was still alive?”
“It would be terrible,” Tony argues. “A dinosaur could eat us.”
“Only if it was a carnivore,” Sofia corrects him. “Herbivores don’t eat meat.”
“Don’t worry,” I assure Tony. “It’s not like there’s a dinosaur out there terrorizing our town.”
“Not this town,” Ms. Frogbottom chimes in. “But there is a place that might have what you’re looking for.…” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a giant map.
There’s no way the map should fit into her pack, but somehow it does.
Her taking the map out can mean only one thing. We’re going on one of Ms. Frogbottom’s field trips.
“Here we go again,” Olivia whispers.
“But where?” Aiden wonders.
“I hope it’s someplace fancy.” Emma rubs lip balm across her lips.
Sofia grabs her tablet. She won’t go anywhere without it.
“Have I mentioned how afraid I am of Ms. Frogbottom’s field trips?” Tony asks nervously. “Something bad always happens. Remember when the Magic Map took us to Egypt? We met that mummy who wanted to trap us forever in his tomb of doom.”
Of course I remember. You don’t forget something like that.
“Don’t worry, Tony,” I tell him. “No matter where we go, we won’t be there forever. We’re always back from field trips by dismissal.”
Ms. Frogbottom points to a spot on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Suddenly a white light flashes all around us. My body feels weightless, and I think my feet have just left the ground.
It’s like I’m flying in space. And then…
2
WE’RE HERE.
Wherever here is. All I know is that we’re not in our classroom at Left Turn Alleyway Elementary anymore. Instead I’m standing on a big lawn at the edge of a town, staring out at a humongous dark lake.
“Look!” Emma exclaims suddenly. “A unicorn! I think we’re in a magical fairyland!”
Unicorn? My news-editor brain starts to buzz. If we were to meet a real-life unicorn, it would be the biggest story any classroom newspaper has ever run. I turn excitedly to see where Emma is pointing and—
Ugh. My news-editor-brain buzz disappears.
Emma is pointing to a flag with a unicorn on it. It’s flying in front of a large, old, stone building across the road from the lake. Above the unicorn flag is another flag—blue with a big white X on it.
Sofia is staring at her tablet. She scrolls for a few seconds, and then shakes her head. “Sorry, Emma. This isn’t a magical fairyland. It’s a country called Scotland. The unicorn is their national animal. That blue-and-white flag is the official flag of Scotland.”
“Yes, Sofia!” Ms. Frogbottom cheers. “We are in Scotland. And what a field trip this will be! Today we’re going to use our senses to experience everything Scotland has to offer. We’re going to try traditional Scottish food, visit a castle, and hopefully take a boat ride on the lake.”
“You mean on the loch,” Sofia says.
“Yes, I suppose I do,” Ms. Frogbottom replies with a laugh.
“Did you guys hear the song about the woman who kept switching the locks on her front door?” Olivia asks us.
“Yeah,” I answer. “The song had a lot of key changes.”
“I love that joke,” my sister says, laughing.
“It’s not that kind of lock,” Sofia explains. “You spell it L-O-C-H. That’s the Scottish word for ‘lake.’ ”
Sometimes Sofia has no sense of humor.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
And speaking of music… there’s some coming from down the block. A guy with a drum set and a woman with a violin have just set up on the sidewalk across the street. A group of women in yellow dresses are dancing as the musicians play.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Each of the women is kicking one of her legs out in front of her and bending her back leg. As they kick and bend, they tap their heels and toes to the beat.
A group of tourists is gathering around, watching.
“Oh, how wonderful!” Ms. Frogbottom exclaims. “Scottish step dancers.”
“I’ve never seen dancing like this,” Olivia says.
“It’s a traditional Scottish folk dance,” Ms. Frogbottom tells her.
“It doesn’t seem hard,” Emma says. “We do much more difficult choreography in my dance class.”
Emma kicks one leg out in front and taps her heel. Then she bends her other leg and taps her toe. Kick. Bend. Kick. Be—
Whoops! Emma’s feet slip out from under her. She lands on her rear end with a thud.
Aiden laughs. “That’s gonna be some dance recital,” he whispers to me.
Emma sticks her tongue out at him.
“Don’t feel bad, Emma,” Ms. Frogbottom tells her. “It can take years to learn to step dance.”
As the dancers finish, Ms. Frogbottom and my classmates applaud. But I’m busy watching three people who are standing next to a van parked by the water.
At first I’m thinking it’s just a bunch of friends having a picnic. Then I see they’re setting up a big video camera with its own stand. A woman is holding a microphone on a long stick.
“They’re making a movie!” Emma squeals. Then she fluffs her hair and waves her arms in the air. “This could be my big break. Yoo-hoo! Director!”
Suddenly some guy wearing rubber boots comes racing from the old stone building across the road. He’s shouting angrily at the people near the van. “Get outta here, ye nasty news folk!”
News folk?
That’s not a movie crew. It’s a TV news crew. They must be working on a story. Now I’m the one who’s excited.
“Why is a news crew here?” I ask the man.
The angry man runs his hand through the small patch of white in the middle of his dark hair, and grumbles.
“Oliver.” Ms. Frogbottom gives me a stern look. “Don’t you think you should introduce yourself before you start asking questions?”
“Sorry,” I apologize. “Hi. I’m Oliver. Why is a news crew here?”
“Every time they park there, they block the view of the loch from my inn,” the man replies, not answering my question. He points to the big picture window at the front of the stone building. “It’s not good for business.”
I want to point out to Ms. Frogbottom that this man did not introduce himself to me, but I don’t think she’d like tha
t. Besides, I have something more important on my mind than this guy’s name.
“Every time?” I repeat. “Why do they keep coming back?”
“No good reason,” the man answers. “Because I assure you that Nessie isn’t going to show up with that camera around. He doesn’t want his picture taken.” The man sighs. “I gotta go back to my kitchen and get cooking.”
Then he leaves. Just like that. He doesn’t even say good-bye. All we hear is the clip-clop, clip-clop of his heavy rain boots as he trudges back to his inn.
“I wonder who Nessie is,” I say as he leaves.
“Maybe he’s a famous Scottish movie star?” Emma asks excitedly. “I could interview him. That would get my story on the front page. Wouldn’t it, Oliver?”
“Nessie could be a famous athlete,” Aiden counters. “An interview with him would be front-page news. Right, Oliver?”
“Nessie isn’t a movie star or a sports star,” Sofia says as she looks at something on her tablet. “He’s a monster.”
“A m-m-monster?” Tony stammers nervously. “Does it live in that water? Like a sea monster?”
“Well, more like a lake monster. ‘Nessie’ is a nickname for the Loch Ness Monster,” Sofia continues, ignoring how scared Tony seems. “And according to this article, he’s possibly an ancient dinosaur—who is still alive and roaming the loch.”
A dinosaur! So that’s what Ms. Frogbottom meant about taking us to a place that had what we were looking for. My brain is so excited, it feels like it might pop out of my skull!
“Nessie’s also a real troublemaker,” Sofia continues. “Apparently he captures anything or anyone who threatens him, and then eats them!”
“E-e-eats them?” Tony’s voice is shaking so badly that I can barely make out what he’s saying. “That’s terrible.”
“You’re not kidding,” Aiden agrees. “Eating people is disgusting. And I’m someone who’ll eat just about anything.”
My friends are standing around, talking about the article Sofia is reading. But I don’t want to hear what some article says. I want to see this monster up close.
Okay, maybe not up close. Because I don’t want to be eaten. I just want to be close enough to catch a glimpse of him. I can’t just stand here when there’s a news story happening.
